Examine yourself to see ---- 112712

   All that I am, all that I have - indeed that I am at all - is His.
Everything is placed in my hands for His purposes.
He kindly allows me to use some for my sustenance even my pleasure but it is not mine, it is His.

So when my mind wanders into the probability that what He has given me that what can be taken will be taken and I find myself growing inflamed with keeping it and/or defending it and I am cast down.

It is not my car or my house or my rights or my guns (ouch) - they are all His even to the smallest cell of the body He has given me.  I am obligated to use it wisely and well but I don't know that I am obligated to defend it - even if I could.

It was His to give and is still His after the giving.  It is never mine.  If through some secondary cause, for His purposes, it comes to a place where it is taken, even taken by force of arms or law or both am I to trust Him to leave me with what He would have me steward or am I to meet force (any type of force) with force?

I wonder if I am not to simply trust Him and allow Him to preserve and protect even my life.  Indeed the very history of our faith demontrates that there is a time and place where we must stand passive as we are persecuted and oppressed, even robbed by force of arms or force of law.

When they came for Him in the garden one only met force with force.  Not only was he foolish but he was wrong and the Lord undid the harm he inflicted.  It does, I hope, make one wonder.

We are raised to believe that we have three inalienable rights.  Life, liberty and happiness (which was originally property).  But I would ask where I am to find my right to any of these in His sovereignty and providence?  A right?  Then it is not grace or mercy but something the creator God is oblidged to provide and preserve?  And what text pray tell gives proof to that?

Paul counted all things as dung compared to the excellency of Christ.  But we, do we really count "all things" so?

Ah you will hack away at self-protection or self-preservation?  And what convinces you that you can, much less are obligated to preserve your self?  Are we not all utterly in His keeping?  Is not our very life His to give, to moderate, even to take?  Is He not sovereign, holy and good in all that happens in His creation?

He has blessed me with much - and I have much through my own foolishness and flesh.  He has allowed it but that does not mitigate my follishness and fleshness.  I have much that is there by sin.  Much.  I can not in good conscience hold that I have a right to keep any of it.  To use it for Him is my duty but that duty does not negate His right to take it away.

Job woefully lamented the loss of all He allowed to be taken.  Yet we read no claim made against God.  Naked Job came and naked he would leave.  Even if God took (or allowed to be taken) his very life Job committed himself trustingly to Him.  Do we - really?

Many do - when there is no choice.  But they simply accept what is happening instead of turning to Him promptly and praise Him for His goodness.  Salvation and a cadillac too was once considered cute - but as we have come to elevate that to the level of doctrine is it devastating.

What do we mean by "mine?"  I fear we mean something very wrong hearted.  I fear we mean "sovereignly mine" not merely mine to serve Him with and through.  I know I struggle against that heart dis-ease.

"He who dies with the most toys wins," is a sad statement for a believer to ever come close to making.  But even if we never say it, I fear we shout it by our lives.  James provides us with an important insight:

James 4:3-4
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.    ESV

He's talking to us.  He's talking "passions."  Not sex, not drugs although those certinly apply.  Rather he is talking about us wanting what we want when we want it how we want it FOR OURSELVES.  And not what He wants, when He want, how He wants for His glory.

He is talking about me, my, mine, ours.  Our passions NOT His passions.  Can you see dear ones the dangerous difference?  See the confusion - the confounding?

We ask for money to get what we want.  We ask for time to use as we want.  We ask for health so we can continue to do what we want.  Is this asking rightly or amiss?

Pau in Romans 7 writes out his turmoil - the flesh against the Spirit.  Which one do we listen to the most.  I see few of us (note I said us - that includes me) bewailing and mourning the opportunities we give the our flesh.

Not I but Christ.
Not mine but His.
What's the differentce?
Zip!

Finger Thinking 060112 B

Finger Thinking  060112 B

There is within the human heart a tough fiberous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess.  It covets “things” with a deep and fierce passion.  The pronouns “my” and “mine” look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. . . ..The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die.  AW Tozer

Honestly, I wanted to change the quote to “There is within my  heart. . . . “

I won’t make any assumptions about any of you but when I read these words I had been wool gathering about some “things” I had and wanted and this quote was a real kick in the teeth.  I am very much caught up in things.

Oh I’m not into really big expensive things I just want lots of little things.  I fight against the “If onlys.”  You know, “if only I had this,” “If only I had that.”  I play the old, “That’s not tooooo expensive,” game.  I justify my wants and gains by keeping them small.

If you ever saw the movie The Jerk with Steve Marin there’s a scene when Steve’s character looses everything.  I a sad but fun ny scene he proclaims the, “I don’t need anything, I don’t need stuff.”  As he walks across the he keeps saying that – but he changes his tune and it becomes, “I don’t need anything but …….”  And he leaves his mansion with an armload of “stuff” that can serve no useful purpose.

I’m like that only I find it’s worse.  I walk around saying, “I don’t need anything more than the Lord, BUT . . . . (or except . . . .)”  Too many of my prayers are dotted with requests for this or that and though they are not bad things they are asked for from a sense that they are really needed. 

There are two things I have to confront with the help of the Spirit.  The first is that somewhere deep down there is a fear or at least an idea that I need the Lord – and.  That somehow the Lord and _____ is the security I need.  Trust me, I’d rather find anything but this in my heart.  It’s not conscious but it’s there and it’s gross.

The second thing has to do with control.  God is sovereign but ……..  I want to live His will but….    It’s interesting.  I’ve been in some pretty dangerous situations and conditions and have found myself trust God with the old, “If it’s His will I’ll survive.”  “If it’s His will X wll happen (or not).”  But – and it’s a big but – When it comes to simple stupid stuff I don’t do that, I just get it or make it happen.

Php 4:11-13  Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  (12)  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  (13)  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

1Ti 6:8  But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

Heb 13:5  Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

But for the grace of God these three verses would convince me I was not redeemed.  If they were the measure of redemption I’d be without hope.  As it is, I am redeemed and miserable.

It’s a good misery – a righteous misery – but misery none-the-less.  Convicted?  Duhhhh.  Guilty”  Duhhhh Duhhhhh!!  Repentant?  Well – I’m just too skeptical of me right now to claim that.  

Those “root’ Tozer wrote of are Kudzu.  If you’ve ever been down south you’ll know Kudzu.  It’s everywhere and almost impossible to get to.  Not only that but you can’t imagine the damage you can do as you try to up-root it.  

Repentance, in this case, for me, is gonna be tough.  Confessing the sin is easy.  It’s the mortification of it that’s really gonna be rough.

I don’t know about you – but I’ve looked in a part of the “mirror” I had not looked in before and, well, “Yuck!”  

God’s gonna have to do some real work here.  Kudzu is tough to root out.

Well – hope this blesses you – it will me – I think ;-}